January 18, 2005 -- on south to the Keys The pace of our travel has slowed a great deal as we have arrived at our winter goal of "Florida". Coming down the western coast and visiting the Keys, we have seen and visited several state and national parks. Last month we enjoyed meeting up with cousins and this time we enjoyed the company of boating friends along the way. With our new leisure, we have begun to spend multiple nights at a single location. We are now at our longest-term stop for the winter at Marina Del Mar in Key Largo. We expect to be here through February, 22. When we last updated this site in early December, we were at the very rural Caladesi Island State Park. We stayed there six days then motored down the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GICW) and on into the heart of beautiful St. Petersburg. We again shared an anchorage and went out to dinner with Alan and Shelley Jett (on "Peace and Quiet") with whom we had sailed from Pensacola to Panama City. While here, we walked to The Pier, all over downtown and took the city bus to the outskirts of town and back. Gorgeous Christmas decorations in the city parks lined the shores of our anchorage and really made the stay in St. Pete extra special. We stayed there two nights then headed on south of Tampa Bay to the DeSoto National Historic Park where we anchored for a couple of days and toured that site -- more eye-opening history that we didn't learn about in school. Next up was a marina stop near Sarasota where we had a most enjoyable dinner with Bob and Carol Booth and their houseguests. We first met Bob & Carol (on "Cracker Jack") in a very cold/rainy/windy anchorage in Georgian Bay last July 4th weekend. They are Canadians who enjoy a condo in Florida in the winter! After our night there, we moved on down to a marina in Venice for a night, to position ourselves at a Passage to the Gulf. An offshore sail took us to a familiar area as we had chartered sailboats in the area of Charlotte Harbor in prior years. We stopped at Cayo Costa State Park on Dec. 13 and knew we were in the aftermath of another hurricane. The Park had been closed for the four months since Charley hit and was to reopen the following week; but they let us walk down to the beach as the trail had just been repaired. Closer to the shore the trees were nearly bare and throughout the Park most of the tall Australian Pines were gone. They were actually glad to be rid of these non-native species. We anchored two nights at Cayo Costa with high winds and shallow water – we rubbed sand several times upon leaving the area at mid/rising tide. (This was but a sample of things to come!) We wandered on south ending up in the Fort Myers City Marina for a couple of days. We enjoyed walking all over the downtown area and took the city bus to the Edison Mall to get that feeling of the hustle and bustle you only get by Christmas shopping. From there it was a great sail down to Naples where we spent Christmas. We arrived in Naples the Saturday before Christmas expecting that we might stay three or four days. Friends Deane Knox and Barbara Shaw from our marina in Cheboygan, both own art galleries in Naples and had made us promise to get in touch when we arrived in the area. They were wonderful hosts loaning us a car and condo and showing us around on multiple occasions. It was great fun being able to visit their Galleries and Jim even got to help Deane install a large bronze sculpture which he had donated to the city. We were docked at the City Marina and walked out to the Pier and all over the older, southern part of town and up and down the classy 5th Ave. S. Their friends Dave and Judy Yoder from Fort Myers, FL (& Avon, CO) were in the area this same week; Jim had previously met the Yoders when they were visiting Deane and Barbara in Michigan. The six of us enjoyed a Holiday Dinner together on Thursday evening at a nice restaurant down toward Marco Island. By Friday morning a cold front and windy weather was in the area and we opted to stay at the dock until Sunday when we headed toward The Keys.
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